Hi, I’m Marco Donnarumma (b. 1984) a performance artist, sound artist, musician and writer. This is my research homepage, here you can find blog posts and texts on theories, ideas, research methods and development of technologies. If you are looking for my works you might want to go here.
I’m about to complete a PhD in Arts and Computational Technologies with Atau Tanaka and Matthew Fuller at Goldsmiths, University of London.
I work on corporeality and computation for sound performance and performance art. With this same focus I have co-founded, XTH, a company that makes open biotechnologies for everyone, products that blur the boundaries between the human body and technology for new modes of expression.
My approach to research is multidimensional, that is, it weaves together resources from cultural and philosophical studies of the body, sound art and human-computer interaction.
My research contributes to three areas of studies. First, it offer resources to the cultural study of the body by extending existing analytical tools to address the corporeality of the body when coupled with technology. I’m developing a notion that I call “configuration”, which stresses the centrality of materials, expression and experience to the corporeality arising from the intimacy of the body and technology.
Second, the research contributes to the field of physiological computing by creating computational tools to understand gesture expressivity through muscle sensing. Through this toolset, researchers and performers can test aspects of corporeality and creates ways that enable a material approach to embodiment in human-computer interaction.
Third, through my artistic practice I produce original performance strategies that, by applying the theories and tools described above, problematise the relation between expression, sound, physiology and computation. This research is embodied in an ongoing series of performance works that I play regularly around the world. If I wouldn’t perform, all of the above wouldn’t make sense!
My academic research is presented at top-tier and specialised conferences such as CHI, NIME, ICMC, Pd Con, Linux Audio.
I’m the editor of Biotechnological Performance Practice (eContact! 14.2), a comprehensive journal publication on biotechnologies and the performing arts.
My writings have appeared in leading journals such as the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (MIT Press) and the Transactions On Computer-Human Interactions (ACM), and in specialised books, like Experiencing the Unconventional – Science in Art (World Scientific) and Meat, Metal & Code: Contestable Chimeras – Stelarc (Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art).